20-somethings are using a new barometer to see if their relationship is serious: asking for a last name

The Wall Street Journal reports that asking for your
date's last name is becoming taboo — only permissible when the
relationship is getting serious.

More people are meeting through online dating services,
many of which only require a username or a first name.

If you know your date's last name, you can look them up
on Google and on social media, which may led to unwelcome
discoveries.

I once met a guy named Steve at a Jewish holiday dinner.

At the end of the night, we exchanged numbers. I felt weird about
asking for his last name, so I entered him simply as "Steve
Shabbat."

On a date a few weeks later, I went to show him something on my
phone and a text message from him was still on the screen. "Steve
Shabbat?" he asked. I laughed nervously. I still didn't know his
last name.

It's been a few years since I've left the dating scene, but
apparently, not much has changed in the surname domain. Nicole
Hong at The
Wall Street Journal reports that modern daters are reluctant
to ask for last names until the relationship has gotten more
serious.

That's largely because more people are meeting online, where
often you can get by with simply a username or your first name,
depending on the dating service. One woman quoted in the article
had been dating a man she met on Tinder for three months before
he asked for her last name.

Some people may want to avoid finding unsettling information
about their date online

People who spoke to The Journal explained the rationale behind
not asking for a last name. Once you've got someone's last name,
it can be hard to resist the impulse to find more information
about them online.

"The less I know, the better," one comedian told The Journal,
noting that if he saw a woman liked "bands that suck" on
Facebook, he might break it off.

Nicole Ellison, a University of Michigan professor who has
studied online dating, told The Journal that learning someone's
last name is like opening a Pandora's box of potentially unsavory
information. "You can go to their social media sites, Google the
person, look up criminal histories," she said.

In 2014, Maureen O'Connor at
The Cut called not Googling your date "the new abstinence,"
noting that people seem to be divided on whether sleuthing helps
or hinders the relationship potential.

Over
on Reddit, people shared their thoughts on how and when to
ask for a date's last name.
One Redditor said they sneak a peek at the person's credit or
debit card.
Another uses one of two tricks: "ask to see the picture on
their ID and steal a glance at their last name" or play the
"whose last name is more hard to pronounce game."

Still, some people try to be straightforward about it.
One Redditor wrote: "I just ask and usually on the second
date if its still going well after a couple of hours. It's a good
pause in conversation question, and let's the guy know I'm into
him if I am willing to also give up that info!"